


Awaken

by down



Series: Scenes from a long recovery [1]
Category: Magic Knight Rayearth
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, It's going to be a very long recovery, Multi, but the hurt has been done already, is about the best description of this series, it's just ongoing, waking up is just the start
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 04:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12833148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/down/pseuds/down
Summary: Eagle finally woke from his three-and-a-half year nap in the middle of one night, absolutely naturally and right when no one was there to witness it.





	Awaken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinomu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinomu/gifts).



> Written for Shinomu in the rayearth holiday fic swap 2015~
> 
> Please be aware this - and the rest of the series which is slowly expanding from it - deal with the long-term implications and recovery from Eagle's condition at the end of the manga, including physical impairment and having to relearn how to talk, and move, and coping with having to relearn it.

oOo

Eagle finally woke from his three-and-a-half year nap in the middle of one night, absolutely naturally and right when no one was there to witness it.

The healers had been bathing his face as well as the rest of him, but his eyelashes were still reluctant to part, and he was trying to work out how to move his arm so he could rub at them when the doors opened. He knew, without looking, that it was Lantis standing there. How, he wasn’t certain, but he could sense him; a steady warmth which was a distinctive shade of blue. If a feeling could be blue - and had he started tapping into Cephiro’s magic in his time here or was this the effect of being so long asleep, had he developed new senses somehow? or-

When he actually looked up, there was a healer first, with Lantis hovering behind her. Both were a little blurry, but not bad for eyes he hadn’t used in a long time. He blinked a little, and things cleared slightly.

/Did you call him, or just find him outside the door?/ he asked - meant to say, in fact, but he thought it at the healer instead of using his mouth, automatically. He felt like he should know who she was, but he’d never actually seen any of the people who had been looking after him for the past three years.

“Someone seems to have tampered with the alert on you,” she said - aloud, with an irritated glance at Lantis. “We reached the door at the same moment.”

“Guru Clef was teaching me how to adjust monitoring spells.” Lantis’s face was blank, but his voice was warm. “In case I needed to perform such an adjustment on the shields over the castle, or something similar, of course.”

“And you just decided to practice on my patient and leave it in place for some very important reason, I bet.” The irritation and the voice combined to a memory of careful magic and firm hands checking his pulse. Miura - the master healer herself. (Somehow he thought she would have kept the monitoring spell to herself rather than handing it off to an assistant.) She huffed at Lantis, even as she reached Eagle’s bedside and carefully tilted his head back to check his eyes with a small light she conjured for the purpose. “You’ll tell me it was Clef’s decision to teach you here. Well, I’ll yell at him soon enough. Now - how do you feel?” This directed to Eagle.

/Sleepy, despite my having slept so long!/ Eagle said - no, thought, again.

Miura nodded. “Can you make a noise? Concentrate on the feeling of your mouth opening, shaping it-”

Eagle tried to say ‘of course I can!’, but though this time he did manage to vocalise, all that came out was a strange nonsense sound. He must have looked indignant about his body’s betrayal, as Lantis looked like he was biting his tongue to keep himself quiet. Miura just nodded.

“Good, that’s a promising start. You’ll need to learn to speak again - I know we briefed you on this, but from that look it was so long ago you’ve forgotten. It will be fine, the muscles are working, but your brain has been healing itself - and may have healed over some of your learned responses. We can retrain you. Don’t start panicking - but can you move your arms now?”

It took concentration, but that was more, he thought, from the several years when he expected them not to move at his command - it was hard to believe enough now to make them actually shift. Yet slowly he raised first one arm, and then the other; opened his hands, and closed them again.

Miura said nothing about the way he closed one of them over Lantis’s hand, but Lantis turned his hand about and twisted their fingers together, and this time Eagle didn’t feel the touch through a haze of dreaming and a distance from his body which was making it feel rather alien now he had woken again.

/That was surprisingly tiring./ He didn’t even attempt to speak this time, feeling somewhat indignant at the way his eyelids were sliding shut without his permission already. Miura patted him on the shoulder, even while her other hand checked his pulse again.

“You will still be more asleep than awake for a while, and there will be some work relearning things - but I think I can safely say that you’ll make a very good recovery.”

“He’s too stubborn to do anything else.” Lantis’s voice was warm and relieved, and Eagle held on tighter to his hand as long as he could, fingers shaking slightly at the effort it took to hold on until he slid into real sleep.

oOo

The next three days, Eagle woke again for a few hours here and there - at utterly random times, and not for long, but he clung on to those moments greedily and tried to make them last as long as he could before his body overrode his will - or the healers noticed he was doing it and scolded him for pushing. And the last thing he wanted was to make himself ill again, but being able to see people, to move… it was far harder to let himself sleep than it was to try and stay awake. In those moments he saw many of the people who he’d come to know over the last few years, and had never seen. The master mage among them, who seemed far less stern than Lantis had described him. There was also the Guard who had taken Lantis back as joint head of the whole force, the Chizetan dancer who came along and told him all the palace gossip (and whose reaction to seeing his eyes open was ‘finally! Now you can see what a beautiful sight you’ve been missing when we’re chatting,’ and waving a hand at herself. Laughing was even more tiring than trying to talk, but apparently a lot more natural).

Geo he spoke to on a small screen Lantis brought and set up, as he and Zazu and the NSX were out the far side of Autozam and bound to finish their current task before they came visiting, despite Geo’s threat he’d turn the NSX straight for Cephiro if Eagle ignored the healers and overworked himself. And Zazu hovered in the background, taller than he had been but still with streaks of engine oil on his face, grinning broadly and bouncing in place.

But his first question on waking up was always the same, and Lantis was always there to answer it - had the Magic Knights come yet? Had he missed them?

Lantis sighed, and brushed Eagle’s hair back from his face, but his lips were hiding a smile Eagle could hear in his voice. “No, they haven’t. This is still one of their school days. Tomorrow.”

/You said that yesterday./

“Yesterday I said they’d be here the day after tomorrow. You only slept three hours this time.”

/Good.If they get here and I’m asleep, you have to wake me. And don’t tell them I’ve woken up! I want it to be a surprise./ He reached out for Lantis’s hand again before his eyes shut too far for him to see it, and fell asleep to quiet laughter.

oOo

The next time he struggled his way awake, it was as though he hadn’t slept at all - Lantis was still laughing. But from the other side of him, and Eagle blinked blurring eyes open and reached out for him - he’d done it so many times it was already a habit. /How long did I sleep? Have the girls-/

“You have good timing. Maybe the sleep fixed that too.” Lantis helped him shift slightly more upright against the pillows. “I believe they should be arriving any moment.”

/I have always had good timing,/ Eagle objected. /My tactical instructors were very proud of me./

“Except when it comes to waking on time, perhaps. But you would have slept through the invasion of Cephiro without Geo being ordered to get you out of bed.”

/I could have ordered the ship to do it instead, but Geo would have felt left out…/

Lantis was shaking his head when the door opened. “Hello! How are you today, Eagle- You’re awake! Umi, Fuu, Eagle’s awake!”

/Just about,/ Eagle smiled as Hikaru dashed across the room, Umi and Fuu, following only slightly more sedately. Hikaru flung her arms about him, and he managed to wrap his free arm around her shoulders as she laughed against his cheek, all joy and warmth. /I keep falling asleep again and apparently there are some things I’ll need to learn to do for a second time - talking with actual sound, apparently - but the healers seem pleased enough, so I think I’m mending./

“I’m glad! And Lantis must be too-” Hikaru pressed her head closer to his for a moment to whisper in his ear, her voice run through with a giggle. “He wouldn’t admit it, but he’s been worried when it took so long. So was I.”

/Well, I’m awake now!/ Eagle tightened his grip a moment longer, then let go. /Come on, let me see you! It’s been three and a half years, and Lantis hasn’t changed at all./

Hikaru pulled back, still giggling, and held her arms out. “I haven’t grown much! Umi and Fuu have, at least more than me, but I’m still little.”

“Not as little as you were, though.” Umi stepped up behind Hikaru, laughing, and they were both right - Hikaru still wasn’t particularly tall, but she wasn’t a child anymore, either. Just still as bubbly and bright as ever. “Glad to see you awake again, Eagle. How’re you feeling?”

/Tired! I keep falling asleep again. But it’s good to see all of you./

“And to see you,” Fuu said, smiling from Hikaru’s other side. “But I’m sure we shouldn’t all be tiring you out like this if you’ve just started waking up - Hikaru, why don’t you stay this time? Umi and I will go and see everyone else, and you talk to Eagle. We will come and chat next week.”

Umi patted Hikaru on the shoulder. “We’ll tell everyone you’re monopolising Eagle’s time and threw us all out. Apart from Lantis - I doubt even you could get him out of here yet.” With that and a wicked grin at all three of them, Umi followed Fuu from the room. Hikaru just laughed at her friends, eyes shining.

“Can I sit on the bed? I won’t jostle you or anything, will I?”

/Go ahead. I’d offer you a chair, but Lantis has claimed it./

Hikaru smiled over at Lantis then, and she was - beautiful. And glowing with love for the man she looked at, nearly visibly. Eagle’s throat tightened for a moment, before she looked back at him… with the same expression on her face.

“I bet he hasn’t left since you woke up, has he?”

/…Not that I know of, no./ Blinking hard, Eagle looked up at Lantis, and across at Hikaru again as she perched on the side of his bed, between them, one of her hands resting on Eagle’s leg and the other on Lantis’s knee.

“Good.” Hikaru nodded sharply. “I’d stay, but-”

/You have your school, and your families./

“Yes, though we’re nearly done with school! And then, well,” Hikaru took the hand from Lantis’s knee to wave it at the walls. “The Castle can hold a few more people. Especially little ones like me! Then neither of us will have to leave you again.”

Lantis’s grip on Eagle’s hand tightened a moment, and Eagle looked up at him, remembering that head resting on his shoulder, Cephiro burning brightly in the sky above them. /…Never again?/

/Never again./ Lantis thought, firmly. Aloud, he asked Hikaru what was happening at home, and Eagle managed to stay awake for nearly two hours listening to the animated description of the latest happenings at school, and at the family dojo. When Hikaru finally had to leave, she leant in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, her lips warm enough he felt it even when the door had shut behind her.

Shaking his head, Lantis stood, and pulled the bedclothes closer about Eagle. “You’ve stayed awake twice as long for Hikaru than you have for me.”

/Well, I only get to see her once a week, and I see you every time I wake up. I have to balance it somehow…/ Eagle smiled up at him, slightly wistful. /She’s grown so much. But she’s still…/

“Still Hikaru.” Lantis rearranged the pillows, and then he leant down, and pressed his own lips to Eagle’s forehead. “Sleep, Eagle. Maybe next week you’ll be able to talk longer.”

/Maybe next week I’ll be able to talk at all…/

“Don’t rush.” Lantis stepped away to dim the lights, and when he came back, he took Eagle’s hand without Eagle reaching for it. “We will both wait, as long as you need. Now, sleep.”

Eagle did, still smiling.

oOo


End file.
